Life during lockdown

Basic Project Management tells you that goals should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely).

I don't see anything specific or measurable in those goals, rather a few fluffy sentences put together by a committee of well-meaning but rather clueless people.  Some are actually pure nonsense:  why are we only aiming to keep young people safe ? 

1. When safe to do so, encourage people to be out and about day and night. There were too many people, before lockdown, who were scared to go out particularly in the evening due to misconceptions about safety. We need a bustling and exciting metropolis.
2. Ensure effort is put into returning life to normal - pubs, music venues, restaurants and theaters mustn't be inflicted with a new normal they were great just how they were.
3. Isn't it great being able to breathe. We need further promotion of walking and cycling and incentives to reduce car journeys. More pedestrianisation and car free weekends. Ban car idling and enforce it.
4. Appoint a litter tsar. The mental well being of the capital is being eroded by our environment being fouled by litter. It would be no exaggeration to say we are in a litter pandemic. We need nationwide public information films, local enforcement, and a culture of shame associated with all littering from fly-tiping to dropping cigarette butts.

Disgusted that my Freedom Pass has been restricted to after 09:00.  As a regular outpatient at a not very conveniently situated hospital (clinics are always AM), I now have to pay to travel there - can't defer my journey - consequently you haven't kept me off of the transport system during busy periods - simply increased your revenue!  I wonder just how many 'older' Londoners are in the same situation? Would have been much nicer to ask us not to take unnecessary journeys before 09:00 - not impose a blanket ban.

The virus has shown that working can be done from home well so I think the numbers traveling will be far less. There should be permanent dedicated cycleways, with cycles not allowed on car road or pavements. As the move to on line shopping accelerates fewer will bother to travel to shop so all the businesses supported by shopping will decline. This will allow more space to carefully plan how the new city is operated. TLF should bow move to hydrogen busses as electric ones are too heavy for the roads, and an imeadiate complete ban on Diesel engines inside the M25. The tube remains a most potential spreader of disease and should be shut including cross rail. 

Theatres and restaurants must be helped with extra financing. Without them, London is hardly needed, especially if people work from home.

Commenting on 'Delivering a cleaner, greener London'

I think London has been far too slow when compared with other cities to build pop-up cycle lanes for people to move around the city safely. Paris ploughed ahead with installing lots of protected pop-up cycle lanes and London has only done a few here and there with large gaps in-between. And now (unsurprisingly) lots and lots of people are returning to their cars - especially in Tottenham where I live. It's very depressing to see large areas of London returning to the old normal instead of a new normal. Seems that we've missed the biggest opportunity in a generation to make serious change.

We need to build our sense of community and encourage healing. The Arts are not mentioned in the aims highlighted above - why ever not? For centuries they have played a vital role in society, promoting healing through beauty, enhancing education, unifying communities and narrowing social divides, to name but a few well-documented achievements. The Arts should play a pivotal role in London's recovery, healing our city from within whilst solving a large part of the economy's challenges in one sweep.

Since this is such a wide-ranging matter, might this be a moment for a Citizens' Assembly to be considered (see https://citizensassembly.co.uk/democracy-matters/), made up of a random selection of Londoners to look at how to translate the Board's proposals into actions?

For me, housing and community are really key issues.

I'm lucky enough to own my own house in Hackney, but I don't want to live in a London where only the richest can afford to live.

I don't want to live in a London where young people can't afford space to set up a small business, where old 'scruffy' areas are becoming gentrified and homogenised, where new blocks of flats all look alike and are either unaffordable or have no local amenities, where the only shops are coffee shops and small, old-fashioned shops are being pushed out. I don't want to live in a London with none of the old music venues left.

Let's have proper planning that's about communities, not pandering to billionaires who want to build ever-taller office blocks and ever-more exclusive housing.

Looks like a load of socialist claptrap at someone else's expense:  

- Reverse the pattern of rising unemployment and lost economic growth - Magic wand time.  Getting people back into education would be more worthy.  When it comes to unemployment you ain't seen nothing yet as our leaders squeeze the life out of small enterprises.

- Support our communities, including those most impacted by the virus  - what does this mean exactly.  The "most" is a weasel word for the ones we choose.

- Keep young people safe - but not anyone else? 

- Narrow social, economic and health inequalities  - another throw away phrase that you cant disagree with but what does it actually mean??

- Deliver a cleaner, greener London - how about reducing flights to Heathrow rather than expanding it?  London must be almost alone in encouraging large passenger jets to fly over it with all the attendant pollution and safety risk.  And the crazy congestion charge extortion aimed at the poorest and will squeeze the life out of the poorest in London, probably without raising much extra revenue I suspect.

Really the Mayor should be worried about losing major businesses as they flee expensive central London rents and rates. Who actually wants to come to work in London now?  Oh of course offices can be converted into affordable housing (I doubt) but not at the same rent, business rate or local spending power of major businesses and their employees.

He needs to get a grip on public transport (which isn't mentioned) and find a way to encourage people to use it again.  Seriously, if he cant then we are all stuffed.

  For decades Playworkers have seen the ability that children's playing has on community. Where children can play together, community flourishes.

during the period of lockdown, the rights of the child to play have often been severely compromised.  Many streets and estates have  developed informal play settings on the street where adults support children to play. These initiatives have pulled communities together in a way that very little else is able to do. Friendships have grown between generations and across cultures faiths and incomes.  
 Playkx has been running regular play sessions in the kings Cross development area that has drawn families and multi generational groups into the area and made a free play offer supported by Playworkers, that has allowed families to linger and  meet without necessary cost, but increasing local spend on food and drinks throughout what is frequently a day long visit. Children have a free play experience with their adults relaxing but in attendance.

playkx are advocating for this model to be rolled out onto high streets to regenerate the lives of the streets as destinations in themselves and promote the small businesses  which are trying to survive. Children have missed out on free play during the lockdown and increasingly parents are seeking clearly the impact that play has upon the well being of the child and, in consequence, the family.  
we see the development of playable highstreets benefiting all sections of the community and would encourage the meanwhile use of empty shop space to bring a much needed injection of zestful life back to our highstreets. 
we are developing ways for play to be sociably distanced and using play objects that  are sustainable, playable and possible to sanitise.  Information on Playwork initiatives are shared throughout the UK and internationally, so work like this would be replicable.

I think it's really good that a board has been convened. I also think that the aims are excellent (particularly the ones around the environment - yes the others are important but this is a good opportunity to discuss how we can rethink our public spaces).

I'm sure you're only in the very early stages of discussing processes but I would be interested to see more of the details of how these are going to be achieved and what the chances of achieving or partially achieving are. Are you going to be sharing this info with us?

What an incredibly ambitious set of aims. I'm not sure they're in any one body's power to deliver, let alone in a single city. The London Recovery Board is what? what are its powers? What is its guiding approach?

If paternalistic, then it can pursue the traditional route and spend most of its money on token consultations and consultants' fees. However, an approach of empowerment would suggest a different approach.

For example, young, disempowered people, and over 60s - both facing unemployment and craving safety.

Underachieving youngsters will probably come from households that offer them small stake in the future and little incentive to apply themselves. The Secret Teacher offered lost youngsters a mentor with a real promise for the future. You should fund a scheme to match young people with a mentor who can offer them an apprenticeship/job if they do their schooling - that would sort out a number of the aims of the Board in one go if every disillusioned kid is given one.

Deal with the unemployment among over 60s by employing only them in running your schemes! Too many e-g, waspi-like- women are suffering worklessness and pension loss - after Corona they'll have even more difficulty finding work. Please take this seriously!

There must be an aggressive push to discourage/ban the use of cars in the city, starting with Zone 1 including Westminster. There are so many cars on the road with the easing of lockdown, and far too many are driving recklessly, speeding and putting pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers at risk. Expand the network of car free roads in the city. Private cars are not necessary at all in the centre of the city.

Another thing to address is noise pollution. Every weekend since lockdown I've been subjected to ear-piercing screams from excessively loud motorcycles ripping through the street next to my house. They're loud enough to give me hearing damage. The UK Department of Transport was already testing automated "noise cameras" last year around the country, can we launch a network of these around the city on main roads please? These loud motorcyclists and drivers are a nuisance to everyone around them.

To make a greener, cleaner, healthier London. We need to get more people out of their cars and onto bicycles. Could City hall give grants to businesses to have a Cycle Instructor based at their premises to train their employees top ride safely to work? A week or tow for a large organisation a day for a small business. People who are new to cycling need advice, mentoring and encouragement. I know of businesses paying for staff to get Ubers and Taxis to work rather than use public transport. 

Time to be imaginative and think some different thoughts about education.  It's true that many young people are missing out through school closure; sadly, these may also be the children who school attendance historically further disadvantages.  A return to dull, dis-empowering classrooms led by a dry curriculum, may not be the best thing to aim for; nor need it be the only thing to aim for.

Yes, get children back into education, but think flexibly about what that means.  Right now, classrooms are 'out', so let's make use of the space we have outside the classroom.  Look to imaginative integration (and re-establishment) of youth services with education.  Establish community-based youth schemes that give young people opportunities safely to be together, and to work together for the benefit of themselves and their communities.  Meaningful work like this might not fit with the current curriculum, but I have no doubt that it would engender in young people the kind of self-belief and self-worth that would set them up well for an eventual return to more formal educational settings.  

We might even look beyond what I have referred to as work to include other projects more resembling the kind of opportunity usually only available to well-off young people, for example outdoor pursuits of all kinds, creative activities.

Education can (and in my view, should) be about personal development.  Right now there is a real opportunity to start making something like this happen.